Arizona abortion rights backers sue to overturn old ban

PHOENIX (AP) — Supporters of abortion rights on Tuesday sued to block an old Arizona law that criminalizes nearly all abortions, arguing that laws passed by the state Legislature after 1973's Roe v. Wade decision should take precedence and abortions should be allowed until 15 weeks into a pregnancy.

The lawsuit filed by a Phoenix abortion doctor and the Arizona Medical Association repeats many of the arguments made by Planned Parenthood and its Arizona affiliate in their failed effort last month to persuade a Tucson judge to keep in place a 50-year-old injunction barring enforcement of the pre-statehood law. The judge said it was not procedurally proper for her to try to reconcile 50 years of later law with the old law.

Instead, she agreed with Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich that the injunction should be lifted now that the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe.

The Sept. 23 decision from Pima County Superior Court Judge Kellie Johnson came a day before a new law signed by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey that banned abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy took effect.

In wake of the decision that said the 1864 law that bans abortion unless the mother's life is in danger is enforceable, abortion clinics statewide shut down. It was the second time clinics had halted services — they shut down the first time after the Supreme Court ruling, but some restarted after a federal judge ruled that a different “personhood” law was unenforceable.

There is no exception for rape or incest under the old law.

The new lawsuit was filed in Maricopa County Superior Court and seeks an order that says that a raft of newer laws regulating abortion practices by doctors enacted since Roe are the ones that should be enforceable, including the 15-week ban Ducey signed in March. The pre-territorial law should be enforceable only against...